Vertical.dev

This paper is a comparison of two human development theories, Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory (SOT) and Commons’s Model of Hierarchical Complexity (MHC).  Despite representing two of the most divergent approaches to the discipline, their work is found to contain many similarities including a complexity-based scale, corresponding stages, high generalizability, and a common intellectual forefather.  This exploration of their similarities and differences is organized into three parts: the assumptions, the models, and the process of human development.  A reflection follows as to why one has had a vastly greater impact on the human development field than the other. Read this paper

Abstract: In this paper, the gap between science and practice is explored through the lens of the social psychology’s theory of planned behavior.  Twenty three articles were analyzed across a variety of disciplines.  A paradigmatic analysis was conducted to categorize the primary perspectives and approaches taken on the science-practice gap.  Then, after a review of the theory of planned behavior, a second analysis was conducted.  Barriers mentioned in the literature were overlaid on the theory of planned behavior as a means to better understand the gap and unlock more effective approaches for closing it. Read this paper

Abstract: Vertical leadership development represents an approach to developing organizational leadership capacity that is well-documented in the scientific literature but rarely practiced by the organizations who stand to benefit most from it.  Vertical development practitioners, therefore, face the extra challenge of influencing their organizations to value an unknown and unconventional solution.  Social psychology contains a powerful set of tools and methods that can help.  When applied properly by the vertical development practitioner, it is possible for this minority position to influence a more powerful majority, namely, executives that approve and fund organizational leadership development programs.  This paper is a case study that explores just that: how social psychology principles were applied to close the gap between what science knows and what a large retail corporation does as it relates to leadership development. Read this paper

I am completely fascinated by leadership and its impact on the world.  Ever since my earliest opportunities to lead, I have sought to understand and harness the disproportionate impact leaders have on the people around them.  It seems there is no group of humans whose focus, productivity, and morale isn’t profoundly impacted by the quality of their leaders. My fascination with this dynamic of human nature began shortly after my twentieth birthday.  I was halfway through the Naval Academy, trudging through a computer science curriculum that was much less interesting than I envisioned it would be while simultaneously trying not to think about the next seven years of military service to which I was obligated.   That summer, between my second and third academic years, I was given orders to take charge of a dozen incoming freshmen during their six-week indoctrination to life at the military academy. It was a role very similar to that of a drill instructor, and in my ...